Two Designers Walk Into A Bar

Episode 18: The Pink Panther, The Three Little Pigs and the Magic of Saturday Morning Cartoons

Released August 4, 2021
© 2021 Two Designers Media, LLC

Two designers walk into a bar is a proud member of the Evergreen Podcasts Network. For more information about our show, or to discover more podcasts you'll enjoy, visit evergreen podcasts.com. Okay. Go for it. Yeah. Is that okay? Yeah. All right. Okay. Yeah. Alright. Sure. I just wanna make sure, but when I, when I say you can go first, that means you start talking.

Oh, okay. Well now let's start talking.

Welcome to two designers, walk into a bar, a place where pop culture creatives, discover design icons that make us tick, and we share a few cocktails in the process. Yep.

Today, regardless of the time of the week you're listening. It's Saturday morning. We have cartoons. Yeah, you heard us right? Cartoons, whatever drink you're about to enjoy. We hope one of the main ingredients is either maple syrup, lucky Charms, or some combination of the two journey back. Dear childhood with us.

Just like the day your parents snuck you into the bar. Um, Hey, Elliot? Yes. What did you like best about Saturday mornings? Was it, uh, sugary cereals? Was it, uh, the cartoons combination of both. I would say Stick around in your underwear watching cartoons and eating sugary cereals. Yeah. That plus no school.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, it was, it's always funny because, I could never get up early on school days, but Saturday morning I was like, ding. Yeah. Watching cartoons all day. Um, and I really, I, I still love, I know you still love cartoons to this day, so. Mm-hmm. Um, thought it'd be great for us to talk a little bit about some of our favorite cartoon episodes and characters along the way, because they got a lot of history in them.

Oh yeah. Yeah. I have one in mine now that you mention it. Okay, cool. Well, um, I'm gonna tell you a little bit about mine. It's a kind of a minor character. It did have a long run, but, uh, it probably was not the first thing that came to mind. You familiar with the famous director, Fritz Freeling? Right?

Absolutely. Okay. Well, uh, when he started his own production company, he was first hired. To create a character and an opening animation for a film called The Pink Panther. Do you remember that film from 1963 Elliot? I do, and I'll tell you why I remember it. It's because I heard the music. Yeah. And I assumed it was a Pink Panther cartoon film, and I, if I remember correctly, maybe the Pink Panther or some sort of animation was in the opening credits or something.

Yep. Okay. I wanted to know if I was making that up or not. And, um, I think I just said that by the way, so we should probably research that. No, no, it's true. I said it. Oh, oh, okay. You were like, I think it was an opening credit. Yeah, cuz I just said that.

Nevermind. Anyway, I thought the whole movie. Was going to be about the cartoon gonna be an the panther. Yes. And so when it was some French guy running around, suddenly I wasn't nearly as excited. I think it was because there was a disconnect for me between on the cartoon. Inspector Cleo was a, he was on the Pink Panther, but he, his shorts were kind of labeled separately from the pink pan.

Like he never, to the best of my knowledge, interacted with the Pink Panther. Am I correct remembering that? I, no, I think you're right, but, uh, I got a little trivia before we jump into the Pink Panther. Do you know who the voice of the inspector was on the Pink Panther cartoons? Oh, man. Uh, no. I have no idea.

All right. We can play this game. What does the, uh, pink Panther Inspector Cartoons and Eddie Van Halen have in common? Uh, no Brown m and ms. Pretty good guess. Uh, the ins, the voice of the inspector on the cartoons was Pat Harrington Jr. Who played Snyder, the supervisor on one Day at a Time Valley Burton Alley.

That is incredible. Isn't that great? That is amazing. I never knew that. It's, it's like when you listen now, you'll, all you'll hear is Snyder trying to do a bad French accent. I love that. Alright, that, you know, we should just finish the episode now. I don't think we need to go any further. Just put a cap in it right now.

No, no. There's some fun Pink Panther lore I want to share with you. I'm gonna give you a little bit of background and then I want to, Talk more about my favorite, absolute favorite episode. Um, so the character, as I said, was created by Fritz Freeling and a guy named Holly Pratt. And Holly Pratt was actually the director for all of them.

And he was really the man behind the panther. He was a journeyman illustrator, an animator. He worked at all the major studios and, uh, he was working for Warners at the same time. When. Fritz Freeling, which Fritz's first name is actually Isador. Um, Fritz is a nickname. So Isador Fritz Freeling was senior director at, at Warner's Famous Termite Terrace until they shut it down in 1963.

He started a production company called Dei Freeling Enterprises, which picked up animation work from Warners as well as other studios. A quality of their work was about sort of going three steps beyond reality. So it was, you know, the, the language of cartoons and extreme things happened, but it was almost a surreal quality too.

And they were just absolutely masters of a modern look and. Comic timing, they're probably single-handedly responsible for kids like me jumping off of ledges, expecting to hang in the air before, you know, recognizing there was nothing under me, like suspended in air for like, you know, five seconds until I look at, until I look up at the camera and then fall.

You know what was interesting? It's funny that you were talking about Inspector Cleo and a voice in the Pink Panther because. I, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, was it, I think there was maybe one time. Where, if I remember correctly, the Pink Panther broke the fourth wall and he like mm-hmm. Spoke to the audience.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Was that, am I correct? I'm remembering that, but you are. Yeah. So basically they had to, the surreal nature of everything, they had to do that because it was all pantomime. There was no dialogue to keep you engaged. Right. Yeah. Right, right. That's, and that's one of the factors that I love so much about, uh, the, this character is, it rarely spoke or, or if ever,

So, as I said, it was, uh, they were hired, uh, Freeling, uh, and Holly Pratt were hired. To do the opening title credits for a movie in 1963 called The Pink Panther. So this character that we know of the Pink Panther first appeared in this opening title sequence starring Peter Sellers. And let me tell you, go back and watch it now.

It's airplane quality. Bite your tongue. How could it possibly be that good? Elliot, I'm gonna, I'm gonna share a secret that. Only one other person in the entire world knows. So now with our listeners, that'll be seven people. Knowing I went to see this movie in the theater. It was a re, you know, a repeat. It wasn't, I, I wasn't, uh, around at that time in, you were, you weren't born in the theater where they were showing the pink down there.

No, I wasn't born in the theater, but my grandmother took me to see it, like during a, a matinee or something, you know, during the week. And I laughed so hard. I peed all over the theater seat. True story. Luckily, that theater has been shut down, not because of health codes, but for other reasons. But I laugh so hard.

I pissed the theater seats. That's incredible. And we, uh, at the end, we got up and my grandmother looked at it and she was like, okay, hurry up. Get outta here. Okay. Okay. Okay. Back to the movie. And you, you, you would go to the movies with your grandmother until you were in your, what, mid to late thirties, right?

Yeah, but I did stop pissing the theater seats. Okay. And went around my twenties. All right. So the movie title refers to. Uh, a large and valuable pink diamond that's at the center of this heist, and it becomes the McGuffin for the movie. And you've already mentioned Inspector Cuso. That's was the part Peter Sellers played.

Who is this bumbling inspector? The pink diamond had only one flaw, and you could see it under high magnification. The flaw resembled a leaping. Pink Panther, thus the name, uh, of the movie. So again, produced by David Petite and Fritz Freeling with the famous music. Still known today by Henry Mancini.

Mm-hmm. And. So the cartoon was released to theaters, so, okay. Just the opening credits. Like I said, 1963, uh, there would go on to be several Pink Panther movies with opening credits using the same character. After the success of the opening credits for the movies, they actually started releasing cartoons to theaters in the mid sixties, 1966.

Now that became very popular and they created a Pink Panther cartoon show on N B nbc. And that started in 1969. Actually, September 6th, 1969 was the launch of the Pink Panther show. That's gonna be kind of an important date when I start talking about a specific episode that I really loved. But let me get into one of the factors real quick, and then I want to hear what you brought to the bar today.

What I really love about this. You've already mentioned that there was little to no dialogue, so it was all pantomime, which was just rich and the styling of these cartoons, they were very mod. The backgrounds were really simple, limited line work, um, limited color, kind of wonky, mid-century shapes and perspectives.

And, you know, total of the time. Right. And, and even the line work in the backgrounds, which they were just beautiful. The line work was enhanced, super rough, um, uneven, very textural lines. Like, uh, do you remember the illustrator, uh, Mr. Fathering him? Oh yeah. That kind of texture. I pink blot. Yeah. Yeah. You know, just beautiful.

So of the time. So that combined with the limited. Dialogue, a heavy use of great sort of swinging. Jazz music by Henry Mancini really made this character and this series stand out. But before I get too much into a particular episode, tell me about your cartoon character, Todd. It's almost like we plan these conversations or something because you mentioned jazz.

Mm-hmm. You mentioned Henry Mancini. Mm-hmm. And um, my. Cartoon today isn't actually a single character. In fact, Occasionally Warner Brothers would make these sort of one-off cartoons. Mm-hmm. And um, sometimes they would be parodies based on, um, existing characters. Like for example, there's uh, a Daffy Duck and, uh, Porky Pig cartoon based on Sherlock Holmes called Duc you say.

And uh mm-hmm. I always like that, where they're sort of riffing on Sherlock Holmes Uhhuh, but this particular cartoon. Is riffing on the three little pigs, and it's called the Three Little Bops. So it's a jazz update of the three little pigs.

Okay. So you mentioned Warner Brothers also. So. Warner Brothers decided, hey, it's the mid fifties. In fact, it was 1957, uh, when this cartoon was released. And, um, why don't we do, uh, a modern retelling of the three little pigs? Oh, okay. So 1957, you said so? Yes. Uh, Fritz Freeling. And Holly Pratt. Were also at Warner Brothers at the same time.

Ah. Yeah. So we'll have to check the credits. Could very well be at the same time. Is a connection there. Yeah. Yeah. Well it could. It could have been. This was maybe their taste for jazz that they then took away with them when they started their own thing. Yeah. Very cool. Basically, as I mentioned, this cartoon is a one-off.

Mm-hmm. So it doesn't have any of the typical Warner Brothers characters, you know? No. Porky Pig. No Bugs Bunny, no Daffy duck, Foghorn leg corn. None of those guys. Okay. Mm-hmm. Okay. Um, nor does Mel Blank do any of the voices in this particular episode. So this is like one of a handful of Warner Brothers cartoons, Looney Tunes, where mm-hmm.

He was not part of it. And this is a guy, I think you and I may have talked about this before. Um, as a little side, side tangent, side trip here. Do you know the, uh, inscription on Mel Blanc's tombstone? Uh, yeah. Doesn't it say that's all folks? Yes. Talk about, I couldn't remember if it was that, or a Man of a Thousand Voices or something like talk about being committed to his craft.

Probably Rich Little's Tombstone is probably Man of a Thousand Voices or something. We're gonna have to put a link to who Rich Little is. We're gonna probably our audience. Sorry folks. We're, we're digging deep here. That is, that is in the Deep Pop culture files. Yes. Yes. Sorry. We don't, we don't want to brag.

We are, we're not trying to show off. It's like we're popping wheelies all across this podcast right now. Anyway, uh, getting back to the matter at hand, the topic at hand here. So, uh, a jazzy retelling of the three little pigs. The three little bobs, um, released. In the theaters in January of 1957. So a guy named Stan Freeberg was the narrator, and he was a well-known standup comic.

He would do recordings. Mm-hmm. And, um, this was the time where, um, we were really starting to get in a counterculture a little bit, you know, on the road was going to be, it was released a few years later. Like there were just like whiffs of like, change in the air, you know, this is like post World War ii.

So things were starting to happen. So, I will say, I think Warner Brothers and folks like the people who crave the Pink Panther, you know when, because these cartoons were originally shown in movie theaters, you know, of course they weren't originally shown on Saturday mornings. They were like, you know, Saturday matinee in an afternoon or whatever.

They were very much cultural statements of their time. Right, right. So they also recruited a jazz musician named Shorty Rogers Uhhuh. So Shorty Rogers wrote this amazing score, this amazing song, the jazz retelling of the Three Little pigs. Okay. So just to give you, I don't want to give away. Was that before or was that for the episode, or was it done before and they base the episode on that?

No, this was commissioned specifically for this episode. Oh, cool. Yeah. Cool. Warner Brothers commissioned him to do it. Okay, so we all know that there are. The house of straw, you know? Mm-hmm. The house of Sticks or wood. And then the, the brick house, you know, the three little pigs had, um, Mike and Mike died.

Just letting it all hang out. Yep. Yeah, that was a curve ball. I hummed over the plate for Todd. Everybody, please continue. So these three clubs were called The House of Straw. And the Dew Drop in, which was the one made from Sticks, Uhhuh, and then the House of Bricks that was built in 1776 according to the lyrics.

I mean, this, this was the tempo in the song is so great. I mean, I love it so much. Um, the pigs play, they're, they're three of them obviously, so they're trio. And they play a trumpet, a piano, and a drum. So like a little snare drum. Yep. And of course, the big bad wolf has to show up, right? I mean, that's a central part of the story, right?

So the big bad wolf, he wants to join the band, and the big bad wolf plays the trumpet. But the problem is he's really terrible at it. He has no sense of rhythm. He can't get the notes right. And so they're simply not interested in him being part of the band. So they don't let him join Wolf. Wolf suck at music.

I'm just telling. They do, they do. Well, you have a couple on your property, right. They probably keep you up at all hours practicing the jazz music, practicing their, their, uh, scales. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, the wolf. Uh, would get mad at them over the course of the story and when they wouldn't let him play, he would use his trumpet to destroy the building.

So first he knocks down the house of straw. Mm-hmm. Then he knocks down the dew drop in, and, uh, then he tries to knock down the house of bricks and he's not able to do it. So after a series of. Errors with, uh, the wolf consistently trying to destroy the house at Bricks. He ends up blowing himself up with a big, uh, t n t bomb.

He blows himself up in the, in the process of trying to blow up the building. Okay, so long story short, he doesn't go to heaven. But the other place mm-hmm. As they say in the song, so they, you watch the wolf kind of descend down in a hell and he's, he's in a kettle, you know, like he's uhhuh Eddie's, he's pop, you know, this kettle that has fire around it, you know, he is sort of boiling in his own oils and he starts playing the trumpet and he does it in a very soulful way.

Mm-hmm. And, uh, so he ends up, They, the pigs are on stage and they start to hear him playing. They hear this soulful trumpet music, and then the wolf descends like his ghost, which is glowing red descends on the stage. And, um, he starts tapping his foot to the beat of the music. Mm-hmm. And it ends with, um, I guess you could call it a happy ending.

The pigs finally let him join the band and they have a sort of an easel with a sign on it that says the three little bobs. And, uh, And then they reveal a sign. They put a new sign on there that says the three little Bobs plus one. And so the Wolf is the plus one Uhhuh. And, um, so that's, you know, that's a hipper, uh, retelling.

I love the reference to, um, Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil. Yes. To learn to play. You know, the wolf sucks when he is, uh, Up here on Earth and he goes to hell and, uh, is getting cooked in a kettle and then learns to play his trumpet. Really great. Oh yeah, that's just one of several references actually, so, oh, yeah, yeah.

I'll give you, I'll give you a couple, um, more here. So another one is, at the time Liberace was really, really popular, and for those of you who don't know, Liberace, Was this flamboyant guy, he was a piano player. He had his own TV show and he was like, he was an entertainer. You know, these were like these varieties.

The team of Las Vegas? Yes. Yeah. This was even, I think prior to that though, this was in the fifties, I think, before he, he sort of went to Vegas and so he had, um, a brother George. So his older brother George, played the violin and they would often play together. He was actually the orchestral arranger for Liberace's show.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Mm-hmm. But you know, George had his own thing going on from time to time, so he couldn't be there. And so whenever George wasn't there, Liberace would be playing his piano and he would, you know, sort of cut a glance over to the audience and he would say, I wish my brother George was here. Oh man.

I closed my eyes. I thought Liberace was right here with me. It's amazing, isn't it? It it is, it is. You're, you are magical. Well, so when I was a little kid, so you know, I'm watching this in the whatever, late seventies, early eighties. I sort of knew that it was Liberace. Mm-hmm. But I never knew the bit about his bro.

I mean, I knew it was his brother and whatever, but I didn't know the whole backstory, you know? So that was like a, a, again, a cultural reference that was totally lost on me. Mm-hmm. I knew it was something, but I didn't know what it was because kids, this was pre-internet and I never thought to ask my parents.

Because it didn't matter. It was still funny. Yeah, still good. Yeah. Yeah, it was a bit, and also, I don't think Encyclopedia Britannica had a big, uh, entry under L about Liberace. That is a crime. That's how you know you shouldn't trust the Encyclopedia Britannica there. Well, Todd, as you well know, and you're probably an editor on this page, I'm sure the Wikipedia Liberace page is fairly generous in their coverage.

Shop full. Yes. Shop full. So anyway, another reference is depicting the big bad wolf as being a square. You know, there's one point in time mm-hmm. Where one of the pigs cuts a glance at the other one and like in mid-air, you know, with his fingers, like draws a square with a dotted line that just hangs in space.

I mean, it's so great. Oh yeah. So this is in the, the mid fifties. And so one of the ways the Wolf thinks he can come in and ingratiate himself in the band is to disguise himself. I mean, sure. Makes sense on the surface. Mm-hmm. So what he does is he bursts into one of the bars in a fur coat, sort of like a raccoon coat, playing the Charleston song on a e ukulele.

And he has like a little, the hip. By BBO time. Yeah. So this is, at the time, this was very, you know, 23 skidoo, you know, this was, uh, 30 years out of date at this point. So this was like the, the pop culture reference to like what is the most uncool thing you could possibly think of, and showing how out of touch the wolf is.

Right. The, and trying so hard, but it's the most unhip thing he could be doing at that time. Exactly. So, uh, needless to say, the pigs sussed out what he was doing really quickly, and one of them peeled a banana, tossed a peel on the ground. And so he's bopping around, dancing, playing his ukulele. He slips on the peel and kind of surfs his way out of the door.

And all the time strumming furiously. On the ukulele, and then the door gets slammed behind him. And that's one of the things I think both of these cartoons have in common. Uhhuh, is the use of music to be these subtle cues for what is happening with the characters, the actions of the characters. You know, certainly in Pink Panthers, as we talked about, with a lack of dialogue.

But just like you, I love the Pink Panther growing up as well. Um, and I wanna wrap up with just a couple more things and then I really, really want to hear your favorite episode cuz I'm very curious. So, as I mentioned, the first time I saw this cartoon, I was pretty young. I was six or seven. Mm-hmm. So this would've been in the late seventies, 1980 perhaps.

So some of the Liberace references and some of these other things I wasn't tracking with. But there, there were enough other things that I thought. Made the cartoon really delightful and funny, and I thought the music, even back then, I thought the music was great. Um, and so the Warner Brothers cartoons were always a window, other cultures right into the arts.

So these things like the, the, you know, playing the ukulele, wearing the, the fur coat, um, right, totally, totally funny. I knew it was different, right. I knew enough to know that it was off and everything like that. So, as I mentioned earlier, I saw this cartoon as, as sort of an introduction to learning about jazz and learning about mm-hmm.

The beats. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. So in September of 57, I think I mentioned earlier that this cartoon came out in January of 57. So in September of the same year that this cartoon came out on the road was published. Okay. Oh yeah. So 1957 was a pretty big year in pop culture. Then just a couple years later, Kind of blue, the famous Miles Davis album would come out.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So the mid to late fifties was this whole sort of, you know, counterculture, surfacing, uh, jazz age, not the jazz age of the twenties, but sort of like this contemporary. Um, you know what I, I would say what we typically think of today as jazz and the jazz musicians was really starting to take shape during this time.

And so, I love this cartoon because I really see it as sort of an artifact of that change in our culture. Yeah. You know what strikes me, uh, Elliot, is that with that time period, uh, I'm a hundred percent sure, uh, the animators at Warner Brothers were huge fans of, of BBO and jazz. Uh, like underground coffee house stuff and, and, um, really aligning with be culture.

And the reason I say that, um, o obviously I wasn't there, but, uh, my father-in-law studied design at Rhode Island School of Design, and he entered there I like in the late fifties, um, 19 59, 19 58, 59, something like that. And everything that they were about there was. Just like how you said, everyone hung out at coffee shops and cafes and, um, they listened to experimental music and, uh, you know, like, like you were saying, miles Davis reading Kerouac.

Um, but yeah, it, it seemed like, um, the arts really started blending together at that time. So I'm sure that it, this was a love letter to BBO from the, uh, animators. I don't doubt it.

Todd, magical Animals, amazing music. Wow. Boy. What was dropped into my drink? I don't know, Elliot. Are you doing all right? Maybe you need a drink of water. And our listeners also need a break. Folks, we're gonna get a breath of fresh air. We'll be back here at the bar in just a minute. Hi podcast listeners.

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Are we done? We're done. We're done.

It's interesting that, uh, both of us are talking about a pretty similar period because the music for the Pink Panther, uh, had that swing about it. Obviously, Henry Mancini's music, we have already talked about that. There was very little to no dialogue, so the music had to emphasize emotions like surprise would be this.

Blaring horn, kind of, um, trumpet, sound out of tune, things like that. And these were all sort of just. Concepts of the Pink Panther and how they carry through their style. The particular episode that I love, and honestly, I rediscovered this not too long ago, that's why it was top of mind. It's called The Pink Blueprint.

Um, this, as I said, it was originally done for theaters, but this was the very first. Cartoon to play in the Pink Panther Cartoon Show that started in 1969. It wasn't the very first one to be done, but it was the first one to be seen widely on television in 1969. So the Pink Blueprint uses this common concept.

Of substituting alternate versions. Usually a pink version for whatever, uh, this little man is trying to do. And in this particular case, the pink Blueprint, the little man is a builder and he's trying to construct a house. Now, the little man is a recurring character in Pink Panther. And, uh, he is the foil to the Pink Panther.

Or maybe the Pink Panther is really his foil. Um, he's trying to be, uh, Diligent and do whatever is expected of him to be conventional. To be traditional. And the Pink Panther just wants things to be cool and hip and pink. So he's always tripping him up in some way. So that's, this is a common theme of substituting alternate versions, like pink things for whatever the little man is doing.

The little man just describe him. He's sort of the, um, grandfather of the guy you see in the IKEA instructions. Slightly shorter and wider, and he has a mustache. Yeah. But he's kind of that same sort of shapeless entity. Yeah. He, yeah, he, he, uh, again, this goes to the minimalism of this, um, of this cartoon and of this time.

He's not really wearing clothes. He's just arms and a body and legs. He probably wears a painter's hat or something, but yeah, he's, I think he might have overalls in this one. I'm not sure. Sure. In this one. He might, I don't know. Don't know when he was, when he was a worker, I think a lot of times they'd give him like just white overalls.

Yeah. But it was really minimal, you know, it was very just an outline basically. Um, and again, he's a builder in this one and he's trying to build this very traditional, if you think about when you were in elementary school, how you would draw a house with a box and then put a triangle on the top of it.

And of course, His blueprint calls for the house to be blue, um, because it's a blueprint. So the Pink Panther, um, who is just, you know, representing hip and cool, wants to build a more futuristic house that looks kind of like a space port. This asymmetrical, um, um, Jetson style pink house. So, and I think, don't we know this because he secretly tries to swap the plans out.The blueprints out with his blueprints. Yes, exactly. He sees the blueprints that the little man, uh, has and he just, he crumbles 'em up. Throw, he's like, no way in hell the barrel. And he's like, and he's like, here, this is much better. Pink print, pink blueprint with this futuristic house. Uh, and again, none of this is with dialogue.

It's all done. Through the emotion of body movements and sound effects with musical accents, it's very minimal and that's what makes it sofreaking charming. And one of the things that I love about this is, uh, the strong use of the idea of probable impossibility. I said before, like, um, Fritz Freeling and his studio, they really sort of took reality a few steps further.

It wasn't, it wasn't like the, you know, the like Tex Avery kind of cartoon. It was just slightly rolled into how things were operating, for instance. Um, doorframes are sawed into, but they don't collapse until it's the funniest moment for them to collapse. Mm-hmm. So the Pink Panther is trying to carry a ladder through a door.

And the ladder is horizontal, so of course it doesn't fit through the door. Instead of turning it. So it goes in long ways. He saws the doorframe and, you know, continues to go right through. And it's not until the, uh, little man comes through with the ladder that the doorframe falls and of course trips him up.

So the other funny thing, and this is, this is a little, it has to be, uh, an ode to, uh, the Keystone cops or three Stooges or something whenever a door. Lands somewhere, it becomes a portal to another place. Um, a room that was not there, you know, when the door was put on the wall or the floor. Um, so it just becomes these, these portals like these Escher, like things keep happening.

Um, because as you would imagine, there's a conflict there. The the little man is trying to get rid of the Pink Panther and his interruptions. Another funny thing that happens is there is a, uh, a power saw that. Uh, the panther is using to, uh, so the panther's trying to build the house at the same time the way he wants it.

And this power sauce seems to have a mind of its own and has no boundaries. So, you know, it starts off, it's plugged into an outlet, and then it gets outta control and starts sawing everything in its path, which comedy ensues as you would imagine. And, you know, things get cut. The little man, like he gets foiled again at whatever he is trying to build anyway, to, to wrap it up.

What I think is going on, like again, the Pink Panther is not sneaky about this. He's not trying to be malicious. He just wants a pink house. He wants it the right way, right? So he's just kind of going about his way trying to build a pink house. The uh, little man is trying to follow tradition and convention to build the house.

The way, uh, he was told to do it. And in the end, the Pink Panther fools the builder into building the pink house. And we see the last scene, the Pink Panther moves into the futuristic house. And when he moves in and shuts the door, we learned that the pink house is really just a facade to the traditional milk carton shaped house that the little man was trying to build all the time.

So it's kind of like the Pink Panther thinks he, he won, he got his house, but then the facade falls and you're like, oh, okay. What happened? I'm confused, you know? I don't know. I don't know what to believe anymore.

So do you think there's a little bit of a life lesson in there for the kids watching? Like what do you think the takeaway was with that at the end? Well, I think the, the takeaway is, um, It's a, that is pretty complex lesson. It is probably, uh, don't interrupt the flow. Like go by what things are supposed to be, what things were planned and what they were agreed on.

And while you may have, um, a thought or an opinion the way something should be done, uh, it really is about, um, meeting and compromising with other people. I don't know. That's an in that really is interesting, um, that you brought that up. Do you have a thought on that? I, I don't know exactly, but when my son was little, I introduced him to the Pink Panther cartoons pretty early.

Um mm-hmm. We're pretty fortunate. They're all on YouTube so you can find any of them. Mm-hmm. And I, uh, I actually haven't watched this episode in several years, but as soon as he started to talk about it, I remembered it and I think, um, The reason it's so easy to remember is, like you said earlier, there's no dialogue.

Mm-hmm. And because it's sort of mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Pratt Falls and action comedy and, you know, slapstick stuff like the saw, you know, having a mind of its own. Mm-hmm. Um. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think if you're, if you're a little kid, the lesson is maybe little kids don't understand what something being surreal is. To them.

It just, it sort of is, it's a, it's things that happen in their imagination. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so I think, um, it's tradition. I think the little man is tradition and the Pink Panther is imagination or forward thought. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. That's a good way to look at it. Yeah. And so I think it's interesting that in the end tradition one out.

Yeah. You know, I'm not, I don't, I don't know what the. Life lesson is, but I'm thinking again, if this was the first cartoon to be in wide distribution, what was the takeaway? Like? What did they want? Like was it this underpinning of like the man keeping you down, which in a weird way is kind of the same impetus for some of the jazz music and some of the beat writers and everything like that.

Mm-hmm. I would say maybe that's, One of the through lines here between Yeah. Both of our cartoons. Well, you're right. And it, another thing that strikes me too, Elliot, is that, um, in both of these, Uh, everybody kind of left happy. So although the wolf had to go to hell to learn to play the trumpet, he ended up joining the band.

The pigs were obviously happy that he could play in the Pink Panther. Uh, as far as we know, the Panther moved in, but he thought he was moving into, just from the outside was this cool hip house. So, Uh, he was actually moving into a, an extremely conventional house, but we don't see how that ends for him.

So it sort of seems like everybody, uh, ends up, uh, happy. Hmm. I like that. That's very optimistic. Yeah. Speaking of being happy, Elliot, I think it's time to refresh our drinks. I thought you were gonna say something about the glass always being half full. Oh, I like that better. Yeah, I, I like when it's totally full better.

I like when it's totally full. Now why don't we go do that? Alright, that sounds like a plan, Todd. Let's head to the bar. See you next time.

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